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If that doesn't work, you might want to try a different URL. Also, if you want, sticky me the URL and I'll check.
A good way to discover how long it will take would be to search **** for a site in the category you are looking to get added to. Then read the posts on how long it takes to get listed. In many categories, you will see users who check back literally every month for years, to the amusement of the DMOZ editors.
If your listing is in one of these categories, I would either give up, or find a different category to submit to.
Bad advice there...
Not spamming multiple categories would be a good start.
If you need _immediate_ commercial exposure, you need to look for someone that offers that -- many places do, for a commercial fee. DMOZ doesn't offer that.
The worst thing is that you can't do anything about it. If your category's editor is one of your competitors, then that's just bad luck. If she does not like your site, bad luck.
Try it somwehere else. Take yahoo. There are lots of smaller directories where you get feedback much faster. I have stopped wasting my time with it. Submit once and forget.
There are some good threads here regarding searching for directories ("not getting just one fish, but learning how to fish").
I submitted a church site and it isn't in after several months. The editor is definitely not a competitor, but IS a volunteer. Some things in life just take time, and some never happen. Life goes on, we just have to do the best with what we've got and move along.
http*//www.****.com/
What does not necessary means it was rejected. In many of the categories I am a listed editor in (since I am kind of a senior editor those are fairly large), submissions are waiting for over a year. Since those are large categories, no newby would be accepted anyway - so there is no point in me removing myself as an editor of those categories. As long as I am listed, I may assist others by giving advice and maybe from time to time even do some edits there.
In opposition to the common "knowledge" ("Often if you can't get it listed it's because..." - I can't read it anymore), the huge backlog of commercial categories rarely ever is caused by editor abuse, but by the fact that editing a commercial category is absolutely boring.
An example is the Webdesign section. Take a category for webdesigners offering "full service" starting with a specific letter. You may have 100 listed sites and a backlog of for example 800 sites. 2/3 of this is spam or not full service. Maybe 1/3 is full service. If one reviewed ten of them, and the eleventh company looks exactly the same as all the others before, one might become frustrated and turn off the computer for a while. At least that is what happens to me all the time.
Often if you can't get it listed it's because the editor of that category isn't active or has a commercial interest in the category.
Far more often, sites don't get in because they don't meet the inclusion criteria.
WebmasterWorld is not the place to discuss specifics of sites and their eligibility for DMOZ inclusion, so the discussions here are usually less than useful about the real reason for a site not making it into DMOZ.
What webmasters/SEO/... can do?
Don't spam the ODP. It generates a lot of very frustrating work. As many of you will know from the inbox of your mailer, sorting through 300 items of spam to find the 30 items of interest is boring. I was on vacation lately and had about 800 mails in my inbox. Most important mails are presorted to other folders, so nearly all of them were spam (additional 1300 were filtered by the automated spam protection, just as an remark). I thought about deleting them all unread. I don't do business in the Internet so there is no money to lose. At the end I checked them all and discovered a mail from a guy from university who told me I could claim 150 Euro for a speach I held two years ago if I gave them my bank details.
Why I tell this story? Imagine an ODP editor. Looking for the little diamonds to add to his/her category. Wading through 800 unreviewed submissions. Looking for the one site that might really be superb. He has to check every single site if it is not something made by a SEO to fool him and Search Engines. He spends an awfull lot of time moving sites over to the correct category (which he has to determine). In the end he might be able to list a single site in two hours of work (Not a fake - thats what happened to me today :-( ).
What all people out there can do?
If you really want to help the ODP, become an editor in your spare time. Start to edit in a nice, little uncommercial category. Learn the basics. Learn how much fun it can be to be an ODP editor (Basically that is the reason I am still with the ODP editing most of my spare time). After a while, take a second category, maybe bigger - maybe another topic of your choice. Help to make the tales about the ODP become a myth.
What google could do?
Drop the ODP. Do not give PR to ODP links. Identify and ignore all copies of the ODP. Why that? The big players in the SEO business could concentrate on other things than spamming the ODP. There are some companies out there who seem to have several people who only create new domains the whole day and submit them to the ODP.
[Disclaimer: I know that a lot of the SEO guys out there are nice prople. But as you all will know, there are a lot of black sheep.]
[Disclaimer2: Of couse I am only talking for myself. Not for other editors or AOL. I assume that my thoughts in the first chapter are not shared by all of the editors. Anyway this should not be something discussed in here]
What google could do? Drop the ODP. Do not give PR to ODP links.
Agree with that, and I think there are much more people doing so.
If you really want to help the ODP, become an editor in your spare time.
Any tips on that? I don't think they would accept me if I would admit I'm affiliated to a couple of sites.
1. Choose a category of your fun part of live. Hobby. Your wifes hobby. Religion in your hometown. Whatever you may _like_ in your spare time. Something you feel comfortable with.
2. Be honest about your affiliations. If you are doing SEO, are a webdesigner or something similiar, you must have as lot of them - even I do know that. Would you trust someone who [fake data!] says he likes editing a category about HTML-Editors because he has tried hundreds of them and thinks he is an expert if he states "affiliations: None"? Well, regardless of your thoughts: Assume that we wouldn't. ;-) Be adviced that Meta-Editors are quite clever in researching about you on the net. Don't assume them to be idiots. And assume them to be very suspicious if they have a feeling you might lie.
3. A lot of people are rejected because they take editor-applications to easy. Your job will be writing descriptions. Adding new sites. Don't think the URL-suggestions are there for fun only. They test your ability to fulfill he needs of the job. Do you think that [fake data again!] "--> HONULULU VACATION <-- - This incridible site frm HoNuLuLu sells the best vacations ever!" is a good title/description of a site? If so, save your time, your application will be rejected.
4. A last one: Even Albert Einstein would have been rejected for the Nuclear physicvs category if he was unable to fulfill the requirements of the editing job. "I am an expert in that topic" might be a bonus in some areas, but only if the basics are there. No typos, hypes, ...
Read dmoz.org/guidelines , especially the bits on titles, descriptions, site selection criteria and conflicts of interest.
We KNOW it's free. We KNOW it started off with good intentions. We KNOW you get so much spam that it's impossible to deal with. PLEASE, spare us the BS and apologies and the religious-like defenses and admit that the SYSTEM SUCKS. It doesn't work. It never will. One YEAR of two to get in? Hello? Is anyone home? Forget commercial cats, you defenders actually think this is OK! I got news, baby, even the "church" world (Marcia's post) moves faster than that.
As with most bad ideas, the problems often lie in the foundation. My mother told me a long time ago to beware that which you defend early and often. It seems the ODP puts a lot of energy into proclaming early (and over and over again) that they really, truly BELIEVE that potentially vested interests should be gatekeepers of categories they may be listed in. This has been spouted by so many that it seems as though some actually believe it. My God, man. Get a grip.
Hilariously, these are the first words that appear at the OPD site on their "About Us" page:
"The web continues to grow at staggering rates. Automated search engines are increasingly unable to turn up useful results to search queries. The small paid editorial staffs at commercial directory sites can't keep up with submissions, and the quality and comprehensiveness of their directories has suffered. Link rot is setting in and they can't keep pace with the growth of the Internet."
Yet, it's an open secret they're months, if not years, behind. Come on, Google. Get rid of this ineffecient, bloated, antiquated mess so we don't have to talk about them anymore. You've waited long enough.
[edited by: rcjordan at 10:06 pm (utc) on Aug. 29, 2003]
[edit reason] Points kept. Heat reduced. [/edit]
In the meantime, I would suggest that this trainwreck of a thread be shut down. It serves no purpose and we do NOT need to be giving out "tips" on how to become an editor.
"Do they play elsewhere, do they know
more than their childhood games?
Maybe the lizard's shed its tail...."
Yes, your nom de plume fits well.
Absolutely! Yeah! Google, get rid of that horrible directory with millions of listed sites, where sites can be listed for free if they have content and a little patience, and bring in the...uh...er...what? What is the alternative besides not having a directory? It's the largest human-edited directory there is, constantly being updated, 24/7, with thousands of new sites added a day...and it's free. As someone pointed out in another thread, Google's use of Dmoz data is partly the reason why Dmoz gets so much more crap submitted to it than it used to -- any replacement they could choose would eventually have the same problems.
